


blue winter hearts

by maraudeer



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Christmas, Christmas fic, M/M, MWPP, Marauders, Marauders era, They're in love god, figure out your feelings bros, lil bit of jily, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 05:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11201577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudeer/pseuds/maraudeer
Summary: Every year the boys sneak out during Christmas time to go see the lights. 7th year is no exception.





	blue winter hearts

**Author's Note:**

> June 14th seems like an appropriate day to post a Christmas fic, right?

Winter, 1977

 

The four of them snuck out of the school one night during December to visit Hogsmeade. The houses were covered in snow and the mainstreet with the Three Broomsticks and Honeydukes hung lights across intersections and on store fronts. In the town square stood a towering, gleaming Christmas tree. Sirius was sure in little Hogsmeade you could see the star at the top shine from anywhere.

That night he wanted to prove it.

It was a tradition of sorts. They’d snuck down to the town every December to see the lights and get into mischief since they’d begun school at Hogwarts. Of course they’d snuck into Hogsmeade under the cloak to collect butterbeers from time to time. But this was different, and this was special. Back then it had just been Sirius and James, and back then they only made it as close as the first string of lights before they got scared they’d be caught and ran all the way back to Gryffindor tower. But this was their last year, and somewhere along the way they had met two others. 

Together they were James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus. Together they were best friends. Together they were unstoppable. The Marauders. And surely the Marauders could sneak into this pub before seeing the lights. 

“You don’t understand,” James told Madam Rosmerta. They were standing outside the Three Broomsticks. “We have permission to be out tonight.”

Sirius laughed, putting a hand on Remus’s shoulder and stepping forward, “We didn’t think anyone would ask. James is head boy. Why wouldn’t he be allowed out? Right, Moony?”

Remus nodded his head but didn’t say anything. 

Sirius turned back to Madam Rosmerta, giving his best charming smile. “See. Look at him, he wears sweaters. Do you think someone like that would lie to you?”

Sirius didn’t have to turn around to know Remus was rolling his eyes. And he didn’t have to turn around to know the snickering was coming from Peter. 

But the thing was Remus was exactly the type of person to lie to you whether he was wearing a sweater or a halo or a dagger. They were all mischievous, but while James was bold and Sirius was brash and Peter was a follower of the two, Remus was all his own sly and clever kind of trouble. For Sirius, mischief was a fight to the death, it was a clash of swords. For Remus, it was a game of chess. Let him move his pieces and sacrifice a few, and there was a promise of a prank or a hoodwink soon.

“Look, lads. I can’t let you in without written permission from Dumbledore or your Head of House. If I were you, I’d head back up to the castle.”

“Come on---”

“If I’m not mistaken, those girls you let in before us were Hogwarts students,” Remus said quietly from behind James and Sirius. Sirius turned around to look at him. 

“Well,” Madam Rosmerta’s smile slipped, “I don’t see the point---”

“The point,” Remus clarified. “Is you let them go in, and unless you want us to go tell someone, you should let us in too.”

Sirius didn’t even remember seeing girls go in before them, though he hardly ever did remember seeing girls. But if Remus said he saw them there was a fifty/fifty chance he actually did. Or else, he could be betting on the fact that Madam Rosmerta didn’t remember who she’d already let in, so either of them could be right. 

Sirius looked Remus up and down. He wore a Christmas sweater with a coat over it. Snow was melted wet on his boots and socks poked out of them from the top. Remus was an experienced liar. He looked cool and threatening and right. But every liar had a tell. His was the tugging of his sleeve over his left hand. But his hands hung empty and free of soft fabric. There alone stood scars from his time in the shack when he was younger, when Remus hadn’t had the others around to look after him and he’d scratched himself raw. The scars were red and pale against the rest of his smooth skin. 

Remus wasn’t lying about this one.

Rosmerta sighed, “Fine. But I don’t want to hear anymore from you.”

Sirius whooped and leaned forward, kissing her on both cheeks. “Good woman.”

Peter snickered more as they walk past her into the dimly lit bar. 

“And stop that laughing, boy,” She called back to him.

That made them all laugh. 

In Sirius’ experience the Three Broomsticks, and pubs in general, were always more glamourous from the outside. Inside there were people in festive cloaks and old cloaks milling around with mugs of butterbeer in hand. The floor looked dirty and a radio above the bar played crackling Christmas music- possibly Celestina Warbeck, but Sirius wasn’t sure, recently Remus had him listening to muggle Christmas carols. They took a seat at a booth and took off their gloves and hats.

“Merlin. It was freezing out there,” James said. 

Sirius breathed into his hands, rubbing them together.

“Shall I go get us a round?” Peter asked.

“I’ll go with you mate,” James slid out of his seat and joined him. Together they headed to the bar.

When they were gone, Sirius gave Remus a look. 

Remus tilted his head down, brown tawny hair falling forward, and he moved his hands out like he was searching for something to do with them. “What’s that look for?”

“What! Moony, you were brilliant out there.”

Remus shrugged, “You would have thought of it if I hadn’t.”

Sirius wasn’t so sure he would have. He would have thought of storming the building or sneaking in through a bathroom window, but he rarely thought of the easiest, most direct way. 

“If you hadn’t been here,” he told him. “We would still be freezing our asses off out there.”

Remus laughed, a small, quiet thing. It pleased Sirius more than he liked to admit to hear it and to know he’d caused it.

They looked over at James and Peter. James was leaning forward talking- probably flirting- with Madam Rosmerta, and Peter was staring towards the two girls sitting near the fireplace. Sirius started when he saw that one of them had brilliant red hair. 

Lily Evans.

In Hogsmeade. 

At Night. 

Without Permission. 

Merlin’s Beard. 

Rosmerta set out their butterbeers onto the bar, and Peter nudged James’s shoulder. Sirius watch James say thanks and grab the drinks. They walked over to Lily and her friend.

In some ways, Sirius should be mad about this. But overall he knew how badly James wanted to date Lily, and he knew how close he was to getting her to say yes. He wasn’t about to stop him from having what he wanted. If having what Sirius wanted was even possible, there was nothing that would stop him from trying to get it. But what Sirius wanted always seemed to be more complicated than what others wanted.

He looked back at Remus who was still watching them. “Do you want to go see if we can see the tree’s star from the roof?”

Remus seemed to think on it a moment, then nodded. They exited a backdoor to a set of rickety stairs and climbed single file. When they go to the top, Sirius unlatched the trapdoor, climbed out into the cold night, and pulled Remus through.

They walked over to the edge near the wall where it was warmer and the snow didn’t touch. Out over the building they could see the whole town lit by twinkling Christmas lights. Some kept the traditional warm, yellow bulbs, while others blinked red, blue, green, and orange, but all of them were suspended in thin air, held up by magic. Beside him, Remus was looking over the Christmas scene as little puffs of air came out of his mouth as he breathed. 

Some part of Sirius didn’t really believe in magic. Or, he believed in magic. But he also believed in science and what he could make his mind create. Magic was too simple a term for what him and his friends could do. They were masterminds. Pioneers. 

Still, with the lights and the cold air and Remus it all felt a little charmed.

“I don’t see the star,” he told Remus.

“Maybe that’s because you’re looking at me.”

Maybe he was looking at a star.

Remus’s eyes were hidden in shadows when he said, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look like that.”

“Like what?”

Remus shook his head and turned towards the stairs.

“Let’s go back inside.”

“No,” Sirius grabbed his shoulder, so that Remus’s back faced the wall, and Sirius faced him. “Like what.”

Remus stared at him like he couldn't believe Sirius was actually going to make him say it. But he had to say it or Sirius was never really going to know; he’d spend forever on this rooftop, wondering if the winter wind would make him fall. 

“I,” his voice broke. 

When they were younger, Remus used to tease him when his voice changed. It would break at random times, and Remus would say stop squeaking. Sirius couldn’t wait for the day Remus’s did the same, oh how he’d mock him, but they went on summer holiday before it happened. Remus came back to Hogwarts the next September with a deep, even voice. Remus, it seemed, was even too good for the embarrassment of puberty. 

He started again, “I need you to tell me you don’t like me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he pushed Sirius a little, not enough to get him to move, but enough for Sirius to understand; this was Remus saying please. “You’re one of my best mates, of course I like you.”

Sirius could turn back now, play it off as a joke. But he didn’t want to spend forever on this roof. 

“No, Remus. I mean, I need you to tell me you don’t fancy me or I’ll never get it. You know I won’t.”

“Why can’t we just…” 

Just, just, just. 

It was awful, it was terrifying. Sirius had stumped the unstumpable. He’d perplexed the unperplexed. He’d made Remus not know what to do next. He was awful and a terror for ever putting Remus in a position like this, he knew it. And that somehow told him what the answer would be to his question. 

But he needed to hear it.

“Say you don’t like me, not like this.” 

Remus’s clever brown eyes looked at him. Sirius loved his eyes more than anything, because he never realized he spent time noticing them. He noticed his shoulders or his sweater obsession, but it took him a long time to realized his eyes were what he looked at when he could look at whatever he wanted. 

Right now, his eyes were looking at him, but they were hollow, they were another plead. And Sirius knew him too well to pretend he didn’t know what they were asking for. Please, don’t make me choose, they said. 

Right now, Sirius didn’t want to be looking at Remus’s eyes.

“Just tell me.”

Down at the street some drunken fools sang Jingle Bells, up on the roof some teenaged fools danced around each other, trying not to step on any toes. 

Remus whispered, “I don’t like you. Not like that.”

But Sirius saw where he’d tugged his sleeve over his left hand and held it down. 

James and Lily’s heads popped up from the roof’s opening. James looked a little drunk. Lily was smiling. 

“Stop screwing around up here!” James yelled to them.

Lily added, “You’ll never believe it! Filch just walked into the pub. We’ve got to sneak out.” 

In a blink, the two were turning to leave, but when James realized they didn’t follow he stuck his head back up to look at them. He looked very happy. He was a boy who was always happy, but right then despite the possibility of them getting caught, despite the impending war looming over all of them, he had perhaps never looked happier. 

He was smiling so much he couldn’t even see what was right in front of him.

“What are you two doing up here anyway? We’ve got to get down to the town square. We’re gonna try to see the lights anyway. Oh! And can you believe it? Lily sneaking out of school too, I thought she was too much of a goody two-shoes.”

Remus spoke, which was weird on its own because Sirius was the talker not Remus, but Sirius found his throat felt like there was something lodged in it. 

So Remus spoke to fill the silence, “That’s awesome, mate.” 

“Yeah,” James smiled some more. “Did I mention I think I’m in love?” 

Remus rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what love is, mate.”

But I do, said the part of Sirius that loved to see himself in pain. 

James didn’t seem to care. They’d been telling him the same thing for years.

“Let’s go. Peter’s gonna be pissed if we don’t hurry up, and I swear if he makes a move on Lily while I’m gone...” 

James trailed off and walked down the steep stairs one more time, leaving them alone again. The drunks had stopped singing Jingle Bells down at the street. 

It was just them. Lights and snow and two boys.

“I guess we should go catch up with them then?” Remus said, and then he chanced a smile.

Sirius thought being punched in the gut would hurt less than this. That smile. 

“Yeah, um. I guess we should go then.” 

He let Remus take the lead, watching his boots make foot prints in the rooftop snow. He heard the quiet crunch of each step. Every liar had a tell.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you loved reading this as much as I loved writing it (bc I really really did). Anyway, let me know what you think!


End file.
